the new u.s. defense chief spots around capitol hill with some republicans will reach foreign policies may be too soft for their liking. forcing that eight year old girl to speak at one hundred kilometers an hour on a snowy road a russian couple of course in the online community with the latest viral video showcasing extreme examples of russian driving. and he reaches an economic and political dead end as the country's crucial general election delivers a clear winner with the population massively rejecting austerity policies. you're watching live from moscow it's one pm in the russian capital capitol hill's

been shaken by a major bipartisan clash over the new defense secretary chuck hagel was narrowly approved by the senate after coming under fire from fellow republicans for past criticism of the iraq war and the jewish lobby with some believing he could also be too soft on iran reports. chuck hagel was confirmed by the senate fifty eight votes for forty one vote against a narrow vote as you can see but he can find in louisville all that apologizing and repenting behind and he had to do a lot of that to get the job to go has been working very hard to tailor his views so as to please congress as a senator chuck hagel allowed himself to oppose the surge in iraq or to criticize israel's policies to oppose seeing war with iran as an option but as the president's nominee for the defense secretary position he backtracked on much of what he had said before and did it as as even his supporters noted in a rather clumsy way but in a way that showed how much he wanted the job and the whole confirmation process

including the attack campaign against him including the filibuster ten days ago showed how intolerant the u.s. congress is of alternative thought on foreign policy ten days ago the senators knew quite well that chuck hagel would eventually be confirmed but they chose to block the vote as many say just to make a point president obama certainly knew that chuck hagel confirmation process would not go as smoothly as say john kerry's but he nominated him anyway it looks like president obama too wanted to make a point this is his last term he doesn't have to think about getting reelected and it is a good time for him to make a point by the end of his first term the degree of war mongering in washington has escalated and we should the point where even the president said there's too much war talk going on now mineta chuck hagel could be his way over bringing it down a notch the president is also quite aware of the general war fatigue in the country but the u.s. congress doesn't seem to have that same war fatigue as chuck hagel confirmation

hearing showed quite to the contrary never too tired for war it seems one more thing it's saying important to point out here chuck hagel as defense secretary little not be in a position to generate policy is there to fulfill the president's policies probably his main job will be managing the budget the biggest military budget in the world and figuring out where to make cuts but most of the questions senators asked during his confirmation hearing were about policies which is really not going to be in his field of work anyway. well foreign policy expert i think the republican outcry over hey goes nomination had more to do with pale than policy what it showed was that the stranger was willing to stick with hagel on this saying if you can judge someone by who's enemies are then i think this was a step back from just sort of confrontational policies that the u.s. has followed over the past ten twelve years the republicans are trying to do two things one is they were destroying as many roadblocks as they could against obama

and it's quite clear the republican party has made a decision that they're going to basically put their bodies on the railroad tracks and and jam up the works as much as possible this was an opportunity to do that but i think also it was a way to try to intimidate both. and the administration around the question of iran and around the question of israel so you know it was it was more public theater but a lot of politics the united states is public theater so i think that was the goal now driving on the rushes roads can be notoriously difficult and at times a treacherous task but imagine if there were children behind the wheel. go to at least one hundred your mother is filming you. and a two year old drive in a car my friend asked what have fainted if she saw this. posted on social networks

now you did not miss here that's an eight year old girl driving out one hundred kilometers per hour if the reckless decision to let her do that wasn't enough in the audiotape you can hear her father encouraging her to hit the gas pedal to go faster her parents said they posted the video online to show off their daughter's driving skills it quickly got tens of thousands of hits on you tube and a hail storm of criticism from outraged web users the couple then decided perhaps unsurprisingly to get rid of their accounts on social networks after police got involved and started an investigation into the case. but that is not all fed up with rude drivers who refused to give him right away a bus driver could alexy has developed a very uncompromising response if any car gets in his way he immediately punish is the offender as you can see here by ramming them from behind these are just some of the examples of the brutal justice from his dashboard camera despite having already racked up more than one hundred traffic accidents the man has amazingly still

managed to keep his job these are just a couple of strange stories from russia's roads the more bizarre incident you can visit our web site r.t. dot com. now it's only find itself in a stalemate after an inconclusive general election left the country with no clear political leadership voters overwhelmingly rejected austerity policies with more than fifty percent of the electorate voting for parties opposed to financial measures billionaire tycoon and of course former prime minister silvio berlusconi gained victory in the senate while the center left leader pierre luigi bersani one of the most seats in the lower house of parliament with no one on enough votes to govern the deadlock sparked a drop in the value of the euro and ignited warry on global markets which are losing faith in it to his ability to deal with the financial crisis professor of economics a lot of each of his r.t. says it's a nice political stalemate will have dire consequences for the country's battered economy. italy is in the critical need of evena reform that reassures the markets

and i now see it in the program that the center left gave or that the green addressed so the problem is that they're addressing some parts corruptions and honesty but they're not addressing the konami key issues the way they should be there's going to be clear worry of over default to a partial default and i would have that's why it's something to my scare the markets because italy has two thousand billion euros in debt and it's six times bigger than what greece has and the international economy doesn't have the you know the salvage funds to take care of the problem of these mag. talks between iran and six of the world's leading powers have brought no solution to the impossible the state's nucular program more negotiations

a plan for april with iran called in the current round of talks which concluded earlier on wednesday more realistic still around refused to budge on the closure of one of its main nuclear plants same return for an easing of sanctions the west still expects the country to scale back its uranium enrichment to twenty percent or many nations including the u.s. are willing to give diplomacy another go israel is running out of patience saying it will use force against iran to stop it from building a bomb however middle east expert says the main decision makers won't even present during the talks. if we look at the behavior if you look at the offers which were made i understand not the lifting of sanctions but rather having of sanctions i think that the pro israeli roy and the israeli club if i could say in general still has a significant amount of control and leverage on u.s. policy towards iran and on the p five plus one talks and if this trend continues i don't think we could expect much because iran has made it clear that it will not

bow down to talks or to pressures with a gun pointed at its head well i cannot rule out the possibility that they not on your whole government might actually go ahead with a unilateral strike although although that is extremely risky on all levels including how the american public might react to the scenario of israel dragging america into a confrontation i think the fundamental issue to look at the look at sorry is how bold obama could be in confronting benjamin had not on yahoo and confronting the pro israeli right in congress and as nuclear talks continue it's ordinary iranians who are bearing the brunt of western imposed sanctions lack of proper medicine and food shortages are affecting thousands of people on a daily basis artie's marina portnoy reports. in an effort to stop tehran's nuclear program western countries have used an arsenal of crippling economic sanctions over the years in the interim america and its allies may have started

a widespread medical crisis for the iranian people hundreds of thousands of iranians with serious illnesses such as cancer diabetes and all three of us can't reportedly receive lifesaving medicines because of international sanctions due to banking restrictions imposed by u.s. and european governments companies and hospitals in iran say they are on able to purchase pharmaceuticals from abroad now according to reports an estimated twenty three thousand iranians with hiv or aids have had their life saving medication restricted and medicine shortages for splits since specific blood disorders have allegedly resulted in many deaths already i spoke with an iranian american who recently visited iran bringing his grandmother meds for her diabetes and all three of us alex shams told me that the stock of pain relievers he packed was for a hospital the people who are the most vulnerable the people with the most special

kind of cancer or illnesses they're the ones who right now are feeling the pinch the hospital that i brought medicine back there was a cancer hospital and they're right now it's a beating that they won't have tylenol in a short in a very short period of time that they're asking people to hoard tylenol and bring it back. unfortunately that's how they're doing with tylenol i can't even begin to imagine what how their stockpiles of cancer medicine are looking right now the latest round of u.s. and european sanctions have caused iran's currency to plummet and oil revenue to slash which in turn has pushed up inflation critics say. east catastrophic economic warfare against ordinary iranian citizens so far producing all harm and no good. weapons of mass destruction very very blunt instrument a few against nations sanctions the way that they are being propagated by the

usa by europe and indeed to a certain degree by the un against iran really be very harmful they don't achieve their objectives that penalizing the old you know the person and i think it is totally unethical and immoral that we have to be very very care full about what happens which is why i think a retooling and readjustment of the sanctions in this medical area is critical within a very short time because as this begins to spiral so too then does the black or. many experts warn that if the u.s. continues leading a path of sanction destruction against iran this circumstance can manifest into a repeat of iraq in the ninety's marina port ny r.t. new york. still to come this hour at birth control or race control outrage in israel is african women a subjected to potentially damaging contraceptive injections often without their

consent. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images for world leaders and seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day. live live live. live. live. live

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. welcome back to r.t. coming to you live from moscow. as the cost of living increases across britain figures show the country's middle class is shrinking widening the division between the rich and the poor and with austerity measures set to continue millions of

people are having to accept the life they once enjoyed is now out of reach the serra far as the story. for a large part of her life liz hoggard has been tapping away at building a life for herself as a freelance journalist she's been part of britain's middle class clearing credit cards pay their mortgages on time and they thrived during being but then came the bust and with the decline of opportunities that were for so long a middle class perk i didn't get a contract we knew because budgets were being cut and so all those little things you have in place you always live slightly on credit you know you go into interest in anticipation get paid quite soon that got much to low incomes coupled with high living costs staking fears of a shrinking middle in britain is backed up in a report by the resolution foundation think tank it looked into what the future holds the ten million adults in the low to middle income households forecast

another decade of hardship well unfortunately it's a bit of a grim prospect prices have risen faster than earning to quite some time now and what that means is that people. simmer about perhaps a little more but they can't buy as much with it a stark example of this is housing a couple of decades ago you've had to save for a couple of years maybe three or four years to get a deposit on a house if you're a later middle income first time buyer at the moment you're looking at about twenty two years so middle class trimmings like foreign holidays meals out and home improvements are on hold for the time being as liz has found out she's having to sell off possessions to pay for essential is like dental treatment there's a few packing up the required. so it's quite emotional at times and you have a rush of memory and then you think for ten years and probably something really

important i can find online that has revolutionized it but i also think. these books are. my fast meant a new way to any inching exhibition catalogues that i bought back if not very much money just just a normal price and then of course they become rare as the years go by so in some ways my stocks and shares been sitting on my shelves which i hadn't known about when you look online and i was something that was confronted so there is a sense of well at least i can pay for my newspaper can also treating that. you know you have to not be in tough economic times it can be hard to keep up appearances it's why seems like the one run by the store here in is a proving so popular bring along a designer clothes need to fix things at the credit which could be in the store. but it was a bit of a structure where the first person to actually combine the dress exchange element

with the charity. and introducing the exchange voucher system rather than buying stock in. that kind of give and take on them and as more and more families look for ways to make their money go further the government's being warned that without shared growth britain risks becoming a country of two halves the rich getting richer and the middle classes increasingly losing out meanwhile lives in a generation like a facing up to the reality that the britain's middle class is the next chapter is looking pretty bleak. r.t. london. john kerry may have just stepped in as the new u.s. secretary of state but the diplomats are already reportedly preparing a massive overhaul of washington's policy on syria according to some u.s. officials america is now considering providing the rebels with body armor military vehicles and even possibly training kerry is said to be finalizing preparations for

the move this week during talks with european leaders britain and france are key backers and have been calling for the international arms embargo on syria to be lifted the u.s. had previously shied away from arming the rebels drawing criticism from the anti assad camp this comes as russia continues to call for a peaceful solution that would involve talks between the warring sides. now to other news from around the world a fire at an illegal six story market in the indian city of calcutta has killed nineteen people the least eleven more being hospitalized is still the blaze was caused by a short circuit toxic gases were released hampering rescue efforts a police investigation is underway. a car bomb has killed seven people in northern mali the attack in kadar was carried out by islamist militants the target is believed to have been a military checkpoint manned by a tutor group the group was originally allied with the islamists when they seize

control of northern mali last year or later fell out with them before backing the french out offensive to drive them out. egypt suspended all hot air balloon flights in the area near locks or when one thousand people died in a crash on tuesday tourists from britain france japan hungry and hong kong were among those killed the hot air balloon exploded in mid-air before falling three hundred meters the pilot survived but is said to be in a critical condition. a recent health scandal in israel is causing outrage among human rights groups there was really last month or thirty's a female if european migrants birth control injections often without their knowledge or consent now there are warnings of a serious legal backlash as artie's paula slayer found out budget. horror when i first arrived at the grand transit camp i got pregnant and i gave birth he told me if you don't take the shot we won't give you a ticket so it's exists shot but i didn't know that it would prevent pregnancies i

didn't know. but more and more israeli women were becoming suspicious like. who runs a youth center in an ethiopian neighborhood in four years only one child was born here and the alarming statistic in a community where family wealth is countered by the number of children and where national figures show that the birth rate among ethiopian women in israel has dropped by fifty percent and all of those are the chemical family of all i believe a few of the organizations who were responsible for bringing if they open immigrants to israel decided to administer a contraceptive to them we don't know who gave the instruction but we do know from what we were told that this treatment began in a failed here. and a continued in israel where every three months immigrant ethiopian woman received a shot of the controversial depôt provera contraceptive drug but now that we said we wouldn't take the shot they said then you come to me great you won't get

assistance or medical care and if so we wouldn't be able to leave so we were scared we didn't know how things worked in a different country although legal the american food and drug administration has warned that the side effects of this drug could be irreversible you must understand this was not normal contraception we're talking about contraception that has significant medical and mental effects irregular cycles vaginal bleeding osteoporosis alongside mental side effects like depression mood swings wage and more so this is contraception which is not recommended for most women and in fact most women in israel do not use it but two thirds of ethiopian women have been taking it without being informed that they don't have to and now for the first time an israeli official has admitted or for a teeth have been administering a to them in january this year the director general of the health ministry ordered all gynecologists working for or with the health maintenance organizations not to

in new any deeper prevail or prescriptions for women originating from ethiopia or for any other woman for whom there is. concern that they do not fully understand the implications of the treatment critics say it stinks of racism i think. this is wrong that they are don't want poor black children you can see a lot of us through an organisation both going to kill another country local. without any given that. very happy. very proud of that but the legal backlash is beginning and while nervous about coming forward human rights groups are encouraging ethiopian women to sue for damages so far no one's taken responsibility organizations involved in the immigration of ethiopians to israel are all blaming each other they defense is that they offered several different types of contraceptives to ethiopian women and that all of them participated voluntarily in family planning policy r.t.

tel aviv. now just a click away for you on our website supporters of syria's president assad scoring points on the cyber battlefield the group known as the syrian electronic army has hurt the twitter feed of france's top news agency until the world with what they're calling on by its content find out more online. plus the vader on a sort of storm troopers attempt an assault on one of ukraine's ministries as well websites for the motives and pictures that r.t. dot com. up. next we take you to russia's koehler peninsula to discover the wonders of the legendary northern lights stay with us and i'll tell you. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize. everything you thought. welcome to the big picture. secret laboratory kirby was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which fortunately doesn't give a dollar amount anything tunes mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans in the world this is why you should care only.

not everyone can say they've been on top of the world but if you're in russia you've got a better chance than most there are only eight countries on the planet that stretch above the arctic circle and this is one of them and if you go to the right spot you can see the most spectacular light show on a deal or boy all this it was midwinter and i was taking the scenic route for the next thirty six hours. but according to this the further north we go the less daylight time actually get a bit saying because we should be arriving in moments right in the middle of that poland night that is forty days almost total darkness. but up here even when it's pitch black it can still be beautiful. i was having.